How PDFs Help Build an E-Government in 2022

The e-government concept emerges as the whole world moves faster towards digitization. Governmental sectors also pursue streamlined working processes, improved customer satisfaction, enhanced responsiveness to customers, as well as reduced compliance and business risks.

Therefore, e-governments have gained popularity in many countries around the world. An increasing number of governments have introduced and implemented this concept to cut down costs, improve public services, and enhance efficiency.

How Can PDFs Help in Running an E-government?

 Data Security

While data security has received wider attention from all walks of life, government agencies equally put a premium on information confidentiality. In a government, privacy for both officials and clients is unprecedentedly important. To digitize paper documents into PDFs can satisfactorily resolve this question. In addition, by setting passwords to limit viewing, editing, and printing, sensitive and confidential content will be kept in safe hands. What’s more important, government employees can exercise complete control over who can access and edit which documents.

With the top three options for improving PDF document security, namely encryption, redaction, and digital signatures (different from electronic signatures), data in PDF documents will be secured. These three methods can be used alone or in combination to satisfy any complicated needs.

Information Organization & Accessibility

Paper documents are usually tough to re-edit and archive. Updating and syncing the content in a paper file is always a headache. Governments need to process many files daily, which makes document retrieval and archival a necessity. The ability to search for relevant information within a couple of clicks enables government staff to take advantage of information tools and maximize their efficiency.

If in urgent need, having easy and timely access to information is imperative for citizens. Under the circumstance, digitizing paper records to PDF will help enhance information organization, accessibility, sharing, collaboration, storage, and recovery.

For visually-impaired people (or people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities) who have trouble reading on a printed page, they may need a special assistance tool when reading. That is to say, this group of individuals has more difficulties when it comes to accessing information.

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In response to this, the U.S Congress enacted Section 508 to ensure access to citizen-oriented information for a wider range of people. Such information includes content published on official webs and social media. To meet these requirements, governmental agencies are required to use built-in accessibility features to assist in PDF files, so that these groups of people can access the documents.

Less Paper Usage

Traditionally, government agencies had to adopt paper documents and paper-based workflows for absolutely everything. However, from an environmental protection perspective, the wide use of paper resources proved to be energy-wasting and non-recyclable. With the help of PDF, everything can be completed online, which presents a good chance of improving productivity and saving much more paper resources.

In addition, Adobe, the developer of PDF, further released standards-oriented initiatives such as PDF/A (Archival) and PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) to keep PDFs at the central position in the government’s document management strategy.

After reassessing the workflow, an increasing number of agencies started to embrace this new emerging file format. From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the Prevention (CDC), more offices and agencies have shifted to PDF in order to reduce costs, lessen paper usage, and streamline former red flags.

Streamlined Process

PDFs and PDF tools make document management and information access more direct and productive. Government staff needs universal access to documents, and digital documents are equally applicable. For instance, with a paper document, once editing is finished, it is nearly impossible to rework the document to make further alterations unless it is rewritten and reprinted. However, if employees create and employ reusable PDF templates, they can minimize risks by increasing mistake tolerance, such as avoiding typos or unsatisfying e-signatures.

Add to this, the pros of electronic signatures outweigh the advantages of wet signatures. In the past, people still needed to print out paper documents to obtain handwritten signatures. E-signatures eliminate the process of scanning and printing hard copies. This new emerging method is legally binding in many countries, which can significantly streamline the working process and shorten document turnaround time.

The urgent need for digitizing paper documents has brought about multiple PDF software. These tools assist government officers in doing tasks like merging, editing, and converting files from Microsoft file formats to PDF. The government employees are advantaged because many PDF tools can help batch process documents and edit PDF files, saving a tremendous amount of time.

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What Is an E-Government?

Conceptually, e-government refers to the usage of information and communications technologies to render governmental public services to businesses, citizens, and government agencies efficiently.

Certain individuals tend to think of e-government as merely a website delivering public service via the Internet. Still, the fact is this opinion only covers a small portion of an e-government’s capacity. Generally, it can be divided into two types:

• E-service: digital provision of services, programs, and information provided by governmental agencies;
• E-collaboration: Internet or digital communications which could boost participatory public activities like voting or even paying tax.

Is PDF Significant in Promoting E-Government?

A compelling case to exemplify the importance of this format is that PDF has been utilized as the standard file format or preferred file format by the US Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Federal Courts. The switch to PDF is not exclusive to the US; numerous governments of different countries have started the exact same movement.

Being a crucial part of going paperless and digitization, PDF always takes the lead to reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency. As a rising star in the industry, SwifDoo PDF is dedicated to promoting going paperless and reducing paper waste.

What makes PDF a common standard can be ascribed to the nature of this format

a. PDF displays an exact representation of the original document;

b. PDF’s stability and the consistency makes it compatible with all OS, devices, and printers;c. Anybody can open and assess PDF documents. These unique PDF features well explain its popularity.

Wrapping Up

So, now you all have learned how PDFs assist in building E-Government. PDFs have drastically grown to become one of the most widely-used document formats. Nowadays, people are switching over from paper or word files to PDFs. Not only for businesses and individuals, PDFs are the right format for E-government as well. Moreover, effective in cutting down your paper costs, more data security, and streamlined processes, PDFs play a significant role in transforming the operations of government services.